State Sen. Brandon Beach launches Senate re-election bid

Lt. Gov. Cagle on hand for campaign kickoff

Joining state Sen. Brandon Beach, far right, to kick off his Senate campaign are some heavy political hitters. From left are former House Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, President Pro Tem of the Senate David Shafer and Beach.

ALPHARETTA, Ga. – State Sen. Brandon Beach launched his bid for re-election to the District 21 seat at the Jackson Healthcare Building in Alpharetta, and Rick Jackson, chief executive officer of Jackson Healthcare, was the host.

Special guest and keynote speaker Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he came to brag on the freshman senator from Alpharetta. Indeed, the lieutenant governor had glowing things to say about Beach.

“Brandon has vision. He came to the General Assembly with a plan of what he wanted to accomplish. What I learned quickly was that he is the bull in the china shop. No matter what the issue, he keeps plugging along,” Cagle said. “I don’t think I’ve seen a freshman senator accomplish as much in his first term.”

“He has the ability to look at an issue and see what’s best for Georgia. He’s a go-to guy, first when he was a member of the state Department of Transportation Board, then down at the Legislature,” he said.

State Sen. David Shafer was also at the kickoff to show his support.

Jackson, the host, said he met Beach through church, and he became a great supporter of him.

“As I got to know him as a legislator, I found out he was just tenacious,” Jackson said. “I would give him the Herschel Walker award for having such an impact as a freshman. He always does the right thing – not the most popular thing, but the right thing.”

Beach said he was anxious to expand on the issues he worked for in his first term.

“I want to continue to work on economic development to make sure that we have an environment and a tax policy that will continue to grow jobs,” he said. “We’ve had a great run bringing such companies as General Motors, Hewlett Packard, Ernst and Young and Air Watch in the last eight months.”

These are top-shelf companies that chose to locate jobs in this district.

“I want to continue to work with Gov. Deal in an atmosphere that will continue to drive our economy here forward,” he said. “I want our children to be able to come back here after their schooling is done and find a good job.”

Another area of legislation Beach said he is involved with is with health care. Senate Bill 141 is the only legislation he’s seen that will reduce health care costs.

“It does this by reducing the costs of defensive medicine. That is a $15 billion a year problem in our state,” Beach said.

Every doctor must run “defensive” tests that are unnecessary but are done in an overabundance of caution lest they be sued. Doctors run expensive tests that most patients don’t need.

“Someone has to pay for it, and it is all of us through higher insurance premiums,” he said.

In the General Assembly, Beach serves as vice chairman of the Science and Technology Committee and is secretary of the Transportation Committee. He also serves on the Economic Development and the Government Oversight committees.